UFX036 GUILLOTINE

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I primarily got this office paper guillotine for my dark room, and I can’t use it without noticing the range of sounds it makes as it slices through paper, so I did a recording session and found even more sounds.
But one sound really caught my ear.

I tried cutting a few gauges of cardboard and then tried some thicker paper that I use for making cyanotype prints… Except the pad of A3 pages is ring bound, so removing a single page created the equally spaced holes as per the photo below.

When I closed the guillotine blade slicing through the binding holes, it was like applying an exponential curve to a linear sequence. The equally spaced performations being the linear seqquence, and the accelerating blade being the exponential rate of change. I found it interesting and it made me wonder about other situations this technique could be applied to…
Have a listen, theres an example at the start of the audio preview:

So first I recorded using the Guillotine completely empty, just blade slices. Next was cutting A4 office paper – blade down, cutting and then back up. Then A4 x4 pages at once, then thicker A3 watercolour paper that I use for cyanotype prints. Then four sheets of it. That was when I tried the perforated cuts patterns.

Next I got three grades of cardboard – the corrugated, double layer cardboard really had a bite to it, as it was sliced.

All of this was recorded with Sennheiser MKH8040 LR, MKH8050 C and a pair of Trance Audio Inducer Contact Mics.

The contact mics were attached to the body of the Guillotine for most takes but I also did one take with the contact mics attached directly to the paper and then cardboard.
Once they were on the cardboard I also recorded some takes dragging the cardboard across the blade, for a different action and perspective.

This little library will be useful for what is obvious – cutting paper. But it also contains quite a range of sounds with potential for use in sound design, whether conveying the sharpness obviously, or as a component or layer, or completely abstracted.

Recorded 32bit 192kHz and released 24 bit 96kHz with full UCS metadata and photos.